Honolulu freeway shootings leave 1 dead, 2 injured

A Hawaii man shot at two cars stopped in traffic, then continued on an early Friday morning freeway shooting rampage that left one woman dead and two others injured, Honolulu police said.

The shootings, which included shots fired at police, spanned a wide area of Oahu and appeared to be random, said Maj. Richard Robinson, head of the police Criminal Investigations Division.

Toby Stangel, of Haleiwa, got out of his car at 12:43 a.m., walked up to vehicles stopped in an intersection and opened fire, police said.

A 54-year-old woman was shot multiple times; workers at a nearby supermarket told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser they heard five shots. She was taken to a Honolulu hospital where she was pronounced dead, Honolulu police spokeswoman Michelle Yu said.

Stangel, 28, opened fired again about 10 minutes later on the H-1 freeway, the major artery in Honolulu, shooting a 24-year-old woman, police said. The woman's sister identified the victim to the newspaper as Emelou Asuncion and said she had been shot twice in the shoulder while driving to work. The victim was in serious condition, police said.

A man driving by was also shot and was in critical but stable condition, police said.

Stangel then continued west where he fired at officers conducting a traffic stop on the Moanalua Freeway, police said. The officers were not injured. Stangel was arrested on suspicion of several counts of attempted murder after he was spotted in his stopped BMW at about 1 a.m. on the freeway in Aiea, police said. He now faces murder charges.

It was not clear whether Stangel had a lawyer.

Stangel's father is a pastor at North Shore Christian Fellowship in Haleiwa. A family spokesman, Bob Prasser, told Hawaii News Now that Stangel's parents, who are vacationing in California, were shocked to hear the news.

"They're informed about it. They're absolutely grieving for that lady who died. It's just an unexplainable act of violence. It's not the Toby we know," Prasser said. "I don't think you could call this normal behavior, anywhere close to normal behavior, for anybody. We don't know why it happened."

Records show Stangel has five misdemeanor convictions dating to 2002, including criminal property damage and operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant. He was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and one year probation, including a $150 fine, for criminal property damage in 2006.